Google Tax Round 2? Britain questions Google over taxes

by AIM Newswireon May 20, 2013

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WASHINGTON — Google is being summoned again to have its taxes and practices evaluated by the British government. As Reuters reports, Google is under increased scrutiny as European governments are trying to find ways to raise revenue.

British lawmakers are calling Google executives to a hearing and to testify about their tax practices. Some worry that corporations are skirting laws and accuse Google of these types of practices, which Google has vehemently denied. Why the worry? Google’s “low tax bill”, says Reuters.

Google paid $16 million in taxes, but had $18 billion in profits. Google said that it is because Google’s British affiliate was not taxed on its profits of its advertising arm stationed in the U.K. All of their U.K. sales were conducted from their Irish affiliate.

Google is not alone, as Amazon and other big corporations are under further scrutiny as the eurozone economies are heading toward another recession. Germany’s economy has grown, albeit slowly, but it cannot stop the slide of Spain, Italy, Greece and Cyprus. France is also struggling.

France has announced that it is thinking about a “Google Tax“, where it taxes Internet companies like Google in order to gain more tax revenue. But, it had recently announced that it eased firing practices to help companies adjust to hard times.

AIM Newswire

The AIM Newswire is a collection of political, media and world news stories hand-picked by the AIM Staff. Opinions or bias expressed are not representative of Accuracy in Media.